Movie review: 28 Weeks Later

Infection wants to spread.

by John P. Meyer

28 Weeks Later is one of those rare sequels that equals or surpasses the original film - I'll leave it to you to decide which outing you prefer, but rest assured that if you enjoyed the first movie (28 Days Later), you'll appreciate its progeny for maintaining those leap-out-of-your-seat inducing thrills and holding true to its pervading all-is-lost gloom-doom reality.

Which is all the more remarkable because there's a new director at the helm this time around: an unseasoned Spanish filmmaker named Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Days director Danny Boyle (who also authored a little film called Trainspotting) must have liked what he saw of Fresnadillo's slim oeuvre, because - as executive producer of this film - he had a lot at stake, given that Days is one of the most highly-regarded horror/sci-fi features of recent vintage.

This movie opens at more or less the same position on the timeline as the last one's final scenes - in other words, 28 days after the initial appearance of the "rage virus." There's a brief, harrowing episode involving a married couple who've holed up with a few other nervous survivors on a boarded-up country estate. They - along with their absent children - will have a major impact on the events that follow, and this prologue provides the means of setting up that later action.

This sequence also establishes the dark, shadowy, sometimes confusing cinematographic style, as well as giving the THX sound system a bit of an early workout. (Need I mention this movie is extremely LOUD?) Cleverly (or annoyingly, depending upon your frame of reference), Fresnadillo and his creative team have orchestrated as much of a sonic assault on our sensibilities as a visual one: what we experience as a result is the equivalent of a heavy metal cinematic event.

Journeying 24 weeks into the future, we find ourselves with a sniper's-eye view of metro London, and it's a surreal scene: random charnel fires generate wispy white smoke, while at ground level the streets are empty of both vehicular and foot traffic - in short, it's a ghost city. Only the occupying U.S. Army shows signs of life, and they are torpid ones: rooftop Rangers alternately indulge in riflescope voyeurism (keeping a cross-haired eye on the first few apartment-dwelling pioneers repopulating the green zone) and snooze through their uneventful shifts: the last infected people died of starvation long ago, so they don't expect any trouble - they're just taking sensible precautions.

Among the latest arrivals are the two repatriating children of the couple (Alice and Don - played by Catherine McCormack and Robert Carlyle) whose traumatic separation we witnessed in the film's introductory segment, in which Don was forced to abandon Alice to an unstoppable zombie horde. (Sit through that scene before deciding whether you'd have behaved in similar fashion.) Waiting for Tammy and Andy (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton) at the train station is their father, who soon impresses them with his unrestricted access to local facilities, including (implausibly enough) those maintained by U.S. Army medical personnel. This last bit turns out to be unfortunate for everyone.

Kids will ever be kids, and even though all new Isle of Dogs residents have been warned to stay on their side of the river, Tammy and Andy soon shinny across a bridge cable like nimble wharf rats, requisition an abandoned pizza delivery motor scooter and putt their way on over to their old flat, where Tammy plans to procure a photo of their Mom for Andy. They find the photo all right, but a bigger surprise awaits: this would be the point at which the shit, prior to actually hitting the fan, initially becomes visible above it, like a precariously-perched, improbably-digested Sword of Damocles.

FUBAR is a time-honored and beloved military acronym, and never has there been a more appropriate usage for it than to describe the events which follow: our previously somnambulant sniper crews find themselves with more action on tap than they (or the overheated barrels of their 7.62mm NATO model 700s) can handle, and from 20 floors up there's no way to tell the infected blokes and birds from the not-quite-yet infected ones. But, this being a breakout situation, they've got to keep pulling the trigger. FUBAR with a capital FU.

The lovely Rose Byrne (Wicker Park; The Dead Girl) plays a medical corps army major who attempts to save the situation (and perhaps the human race) from nosediving into the bloody tarmac, while Jeremy Renner (Bobby Sharp in North Country) descends to the rescue from his sniper's perch above.

The creepiest scenes of the film (and there are plenty from which to choose) take place in the darkened Underground, where we view our desperate characters' progress toward their whirlybird deus ex machina through the lens of a night vision scope, whose infrared illuminator turns Ms. Poots' eyes into peepers of truly demonic aspect. The range of this viewing device is barely more than arm's-length, leading to a series of disorienting and cringe-inducing shocks. I don't want to give anything away, but consider that parental bonds can be enormously resilient.

When firebombs are unleashed in the streets of London, those conversant in WWII-era history will inevitably be reminded of the blitz; I imagine this was an intentionally-drawn reference on the part of either Mr. Fresnadillo or Mr. Boyle, but in any case it's resonant imagery indeed. Also resonant are the twin themes of the movie, which relate to the inherent frailty of the human condition and the scarcity of heroism in society. Which, when you think about it, makes the eventual demise of man/woman-kind a not all that unlikely occurrence.

John Murphy reprises his role as composer, with many of the musical themes from the first 28 carrying forward into this iteration. The score is both hard-driving (as befits the frenetic action) and seasoned with a Goblin-worthy eeriness.

Considering the surprisingly large number of weekday filmgoers present at the Northpark AMC early matinee I attended today (May 11), it appears that 28 Weeks already benefits from positive word of mouth, and this will only build as those who've seen it (including this reviewer) report on its quality. 28 weeks later may be too early for the re-settlement of London, but the timing appears just right for the release of this scary, sharp-witted sequel.

SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN: "If it comes back, we kill it." - U.S. Commander of the London sector.